31st Lexember Word

imíke [iˈmiˑd͡ʑə̆], inalienably possessed noun: “back, behind; end“

Originally posted by 2mainstreamhipster

Well, of the year and this Lexember month at least!

So, a fitting word for what is the end of this Lexember event, imíke refers primarily to the back or behind of an object or building, to the end of a road, or to the end of a period of time. It’s inalienably possessed, which makes sense as the end is always the end of something, and it’s considered a location, which means it can be used directly with the case particles of location (like the locative ta).

So that’s it for this year! I once again greatly enjoyed Lexember (despite the flu) and will probably go back and read everyone’s entries in the future (and steal the best ideas ;-)). But without further ado, here’s the last Lexember example of the year:

Kaam só imík urhartéan mik!: “It’s the end of the year, let’s celebrate!“ (literally: “let’s celebrate on the occasion of the end of this year!”)

30th Lexember Word

peorrép [pe̞.o̞̽ˈre̞ˑp], alienably possessed noun: “writing, written words; document“

Originally posted by inabrush

Well, it is winter :P.

The Mountain Folk have had a complicated relationship with writing. Until just a few generations ago, they had no writing system, nor any will to create or adopt one, despite being very much aware of the existence of writing and its purpose. Basically, they viewed writing as a feeble attempt to correct what they saw as a weakness of the mind: the lack of an accurate memory. Having an oral-only culture, they relied on people’s memories to keep their tales and stories alive. They also valued trust and verbal contracts very much (and people breaking such contracts were punished severely).

The pride they had in their oral-only culture and their contempt for writing is reflected in their word for writing, which literally means “speech’s shadow” (in that writing is not speech, but a mere shadow of it, lacking the detail and richness of the real thing).

This attitude has changed of last. Realising that their culture was on the brink of extinction due to the campaign of “assimilation” they were facing, they decided that they couldn’t carry on relying on human brains alone to keep their culture alive and needed a more permanent way to record their folk tales, beliefs, and language. Haotyétpi is now also a written language, and teaching writing and reading forms a large part of the revitalisation efforts that must ensure the survival of the Mountain Folk’s culture and language.

Lexember Words 22nd to 29th

So, as you may have noticed, I’ve fallen way behind with Lexember. I got sick with the flu a week ago, and by the time I was better it was Christmas time and I was away from home and my computer. So I’ve only just started to get back on track. So in order to make things quick, I’ve decided to put all the missing words in one post, rather than make a post for each word. No GIF either, the process of choosing GIFs just takes too much time. This post will just be words, and short explanations. Well, besides this introduction of course! :P

22nd Word: pekrépe [pe̞kˈɾe̞ˑbə̆], inalienably possessed noun: “disease, sickness“

Guess why! :P Anyway, this word is etymologically transparent (sound changes just happen to have kept it and its components recognisable) and means “bad shadow” and harkens back to an old belief of the Mountain Folk that one’s shadow could somehow become “infected” (mostly by bad spirits) resulting in diseases of the mind and body. Modern Mountain Folk naturally know where diseases come from, but the word stayed, just like we still call malaria “malaria” despite knowing it doesn’t come from “bad air”.

23rd Word: urún [uˈɾuˑn], intransitive verb: “to tire, to be/get tired“

This verb refers to the general feeling of tiredness one gets from exerting oneself physically or mentally. Fatigue due to illness is also included.

24th Word: tamín [täˈmiˑn], alienably possessed noun: “riverside village, fishermen’s settlement“

The generic word for “village” is hár. Tamín refers to a specific subset of villages, those set next to a river, and exploiting that river for subsistence.

25th Word: harté [häɾˈt͡ɕe̞ˑ], intransitive verb: “to party, to celebrate“

This verb originally means “to go/be in a village”. The shift in meaning probably comes from the custom of celebrating the most important ceremonies in one’s native village, rather than where one normally lives, with the travelling back to one’s birth village becoming as meaningful and important as the ceremonies themselves.

26th Word: saér [säˈe̞ˑɾ], transitive verb: “to enter, to go/come in“

Here we have another commonly used verb of motion.

27th Word: saériwe [säˈe̞ˑɾɪ̆ʋe̞̽], ditransitive (causative) verb: “to put in, to place inside“

As explained before, verbs referring to putting things in a certain locations are causatives of verbs of motion in Haotyétpi.

28th Word: wessó [ʋe̞ˈsːo̞ˑ], alienably possessed noun: “boat, ship“

This word refers mostly to small to midsize boats used on rivers and other waterways, although it can also be used to refer to larger, seafaring ships.

29th Word: peón [pe̞ˈo̞ˑn], alienably possessed noun: “speech, language; word“

There is another word for “language” in Haotyétpi: asotyétpi. But that word refers to language as a conceptual entity, an object one needs to know how to handle in order to communicate with others. Peón refers to the more mundane words themselves, the actual speech as it is spoken or externalised in any way.

21st Lexember Word

ankesocúp [änd͡ʑe̞̽zo̞̽ˈd͡zuˑp], nominalisation: “right side, right area”

Originally posted by heartsnmagic

Couldn’t find anything relevant, so here’s a puppy :).

So, today’s word is to socú what yesterday’s word was to hayré: a nominalisation referring to the environment of the speaker, rather than to a specific object or location. And really, there is nothing more to say about it that hasn’t been explained yesterday :).

Serí! Ankesocúp wataspá mo!: “No! Put it on the right please!”

20th Lexember Word

ankehayrép [änd͡ʑe̞̽ɦɐ͡ɪˈɾe̞ˑp], nominalisation: “left side, left area”

Originally posted by 2mainstreamhipster

Well, she’s looking in the right direction in any case.

Today’s word is simply a nominalisation of the verb hayré: “to be on the left”. However, it also uses the prefix anke-, which is worth mentioning. With nouns, and some verbs, anke- indicates that something is not what it appears to be, i.e. it means “pseudo-, mock”. However, with many verbs, it indicates instead that the entire environment of the speaker is involved, rather than a specific object. In this case, for instance, it indicates that what one is speaking about is the entire left side of the surroundings, from the point of view of the speaker (generally) rather than the left side of their body.

Ankehayrép wataspá ken: “Be a dear and put it on the left.”

19th Lexember Word

aspá [äɕˈpäˑ], transitive (causative) verb: “to put, to place“

Originally posted by artemispanthar

Hey, it’s not so often I manage to work in a GIF of my current favourite cartoon :P.

Interestingly, this verb is simply the regular causative form (albeit one using an old, nowadays non-productive causative suffix) of the verb ás: “to be, to exist“, a verb also used to mark location. In other words, aspá literally means: “to cause to be (in a certain location)“. This is in fact a common characteristic of Haotyétpi: that it does not have a single verb for “to put”, but instead uses the causative forms of various position verbs, depending on the situation. In particular, aspá is only used when putting things on flat, non-enclosed surfaces (the floor of a room does count as “non-enclosed”, by the way).

Like many commonly used verbs, aspá has a plural form, used when the object of the verb is plural: armó.

Kaáspi seásyo aspán mik mare n’ ás?: “Where should I put this?“

18th Lexember Word

socú [so̞ˈd͡zuˑ], intransitive verb: “to be right, to be on the right side; to go/turn right“

Originally posted by tamamushis

Of course, today’s word had to be the counterpart of yesterday’s hayré. We talked about the left side, so now let’s handle the right side, shall we?

I actually have little to add in this case. Everything I said yesterday about hayré is valid for socú too. That includes the stative and dynamic meanings of the verb, me being unaware of secondary meanings of this word, and the absence of (in this case) positive connotations for the right side in the Mountain Folk culture.

This does not necessarily mean that they consider lateralisation to be irrelevant (in fact, I know that they do). The Mountain Folk simply do not consider one side to be inherently “better” or “worse” than the other.

No example this time either. I simply lack the inspiration.

17th Lexember Word

hayré [hä͡ɪˈɾe̞ˑ], intransitive verb: “to be left, to be on the left side; to go/turn left“

Originally posted by delicatx

Really hard to find GIFs about the left direction…

Anyway, some cultures lack the concept of relative directions. The Mountain Folk is not one of them :P. So naturally, they have words for left and right. And here is the most common word for “left”, as in “left side” or “left direction”. Notice that it is a verb. As I mentioned before, what would be adjectives in many languages are stative verbs in Haotyétpi.

Notice also the dynamic meaning of this verb next to its stative meaning. In Haotyétpi, all stative verbs marking a state or position also have a dynamic meaning that refers to reaching that state or position. Context will usually disambiguate.

I am not aware of other meanings for this verb. Not only that, but it does not seem as if Mountain Folk culture gives negative connotations to the left side, as is not unknown in cultures of the world.

No example today.

16th Lexember Word

meomá [me̞o̞̽ˈmäˑ], alienably possessed noun: “(tree) branch“

Originally posted by mademoiselle-bazaar

Today’s word is simply an example of the kinds of derivations from yesterday’s mé that are in common use. In terms of structure, this is quite simply a compound from the aforementioned mé: “tree, wood“ and the inalienably possessed noun omáse: “hand, forearm“ (in fact, it’s simply the phrase mé omá: “hand of a tree” used so often it ended up losing its first stress and becoming a single word, a common pathway of word formation in Haotyétpi).

No example today, I once again lack inspiration (and words, I must admit).

15th Lexember Word

mé [ˈme̞ˑ], alienably possessed noun: “tree; wood (material)“

Originally posted by the-happy-girls

Just ignore the snow for now :P.

This is the most generic word for “tree”, but it’s also rarely used on its own, being found mostly in compounds and expressions (Mountain Folk rarely refer to trees without talking about what kind of tree it is). In the sense of “wood” as a material, though, it is quite common.

Mé am ciéke emeyró mrese: “I really like wooden houses.“

14th Lexember Word

ikkóte [iˈkːo̞ˑd͡ʑə̆], inalienably possessed noun: “rainwater; drinkwater; juice, broth, sauce, consumable liquid“

Originally posted by m00n-light-princess

So this post is basically a continuation of yesterday’s post about táw.

Wakkú refers to rain as a weather phenomenon. To refer to rain as the water that falls from the sky instead, Haotyétpi speakers use the word ikkóte (or ós ikkót if one wants to be precise).

But the use of ikkóte goes further. Maybe due to the Mountain Folk’s habit to use rain collectors for much of their water consumption, the word ikkóte is also used to refer to water that is safe to drink. This includes water that is collected from other sources (that would first be called táw) once it has been made consumable (if only by filtration). And either as an extension or as the original meaning of the word (I’m not sure exactly what the history of that word is), when a possessor is explicitly mentioned, ikkóte refers to a liquid that is made from or characterised by the possessor, and is consumable. This includes juices, sauces, or even warm liquids like broth, as long as water is their main ingredient.

This means, incidently, that Haotyétpi does not have a word that refers to water in general. There’s only táw and ikkóte, which must be used depending on the origin of the water and its fitness for drinking.

Notice also the seemingly contradictory táw ikkót, which refers to riverwater that is suitable for drinking.

No example today, I’m a little burned out.

13th Lexember Word

táw [ˈtä͡ʊ], alienably possessed noun: “river, stream, brook; riverwater, water from the ground“

Originally posted by panajan

Soothing isn’t it?

This word refers to all kinds of permanent water streams, from small ones like brooks to large rivers. Temporary water streams (due to floods, for instance), however, are not considered táw.

Interestingly, táw is not only used to refer to a water stream, but also to refer to the water in that stream itself, even once it’s been taken away from the stream. And by extension, it is also used to refer to water taken from any ground source. Such a usage is somewhat constrained, but I need tomorrow’s word to explain exactly when táw can be used to refer to water, so I’ll carry on with this explanation tomorrow. For now, I’ll just give you a short example:

Keam táw ponop pú seri! Tikwát marese: “Don’t drink directly from that river! The water’s bad.“

12th Lexember Word

patíse [päˈd͡ʑiˑʑə̆], inalienably possessed noun: “person, animal, location (or other) of special significance for the possessor; ‘soulmate'“

Today is a special day, so today’s Lexember entry is special. Exactly two months ago today, I had to make the most difficult decision in my entire life and say farewell to Buddy, my most special companion in life. Although it wasn’t unexpected (Buddy was, after all, nearly 15 years old, and his health was declining), it still breaks my heart that he not around anymore.

Anyway, while I had already honoured Buddy with a word in Moten (badi means “dog” in that language), I hadn’t yet done so in Haotyétpi (and it already has a word for dog: nupár). So I thought today was the perfect occasion to remedy this, and to give him a word that fits who he was, and what his relationship with me was like. And given Haotyétpi’s restricted phonology, the closest I could get to a word that sounds like “Buddy” is patí, hence today’s word (the -se is only the indefinite possessor ending all inalienably possessed nouns must have in the citation form).

During Lexember last year, I already gave some information about the culture of the Mountain Folk, the speakers of Haotyétpi. With the word ortáse for instance, I talked about the basics of the traditional Mountain Folk animistic beliefs. And with turá, I described one of the central pillars of their religion, the importance of skills and the goal of human life to learn new skills and hone them. Patíse, then, is another central pillar of traditional Mountain Folk religion. It refers to the fact that these ortáse, i.e. souls, spirits or gods, are not isolated islands, but are linked with each other, some far more strongly than others. And if something (or someone) has an ortáse that has such a strong link with yours, then they can be described as a patíse of yours. A patíse, then, is a person, animal, location, object, or even specific time of the year whose ortá has a special link with your own, hence my translation as “soulmate”. “Soulmate”, however, is rather constrained compared to patíse. “Soulmate” usually refers only to fellow humans, and the link is normally always considered to be romantic love. Also, it is usually accepted that a person has a single soulmate. That’s not the case with patíse. The special link that someone has with their patí is not necessarily romantic (a special friendship, a deep mutual understanding with a wild animal, a location that gives one a feeling of belonging and peace are all things that Mountain Folk usually attribute to those being patíse), a patíse can be anything, as I mentioned already. And most importantly, it would be highly unusual for someone to have a only one patíse.

Patíse is another central pillar of Mountain Folk beliefs, because they think that besides learning new skills, the goal of human life is to find one’s patíse, and keep them close to you as much as possible. This means finding the place where one belongs (which is not necessarily where one is born), finding the people one is meant to relate to, possibly finding the animal or animals that are one’s patíse (Mountain Folk usually don’t keep pets, unless those pets are patíse).

As you can expect, I consider Buddy to be one of my patí, which is why I decided to give his name to that concept.

No example for today, this entry has been hard enough on me as it is…

11th Lexember Word

ossép [o̞ˈɕːe̞ˑp], alienably possessed noun: “clouds, cloud cover“

Originally posted by gabedonohoe

An interesting difference between languages is what they consider countable or uncountable. They needn’t always agree: furniture is a mass noun in English, but a count noun in French. Same with cattle.

What we have here is a similar issue: while clouds are countable in English, in Haotyétpi the word ossép is a mass noun. So one cannot talk about 1 or 2 clouds in Haotyétpi, but one can say things like ayú ossép: “a few clouds“ or yussú ossép: “many clouds“ (literally “a little cloudness” and “a lot of cloudness” respectively).

In terms of etymology, ossép is quite simply a compound of yesterday’s repé: “shadow, shade“ and ós: “sky“, meaning ossép is literally “sky shade”. Do notice the change in consonant due to sandhi effects. This specific sandhi rule is actually not the same for all Haotyétpi speakers, so the form ostép is found as well. It’s just a dialectical (well, more sociolectical really) variation and both variants are known and understood by all speakers.

Ossemmák so a. Wakkunákta cepam tikwá ken!: “It’s starting to get cloudy. I sure hope it’s not going to rain!“

10th Lexember Word

repé [ɾe̞ˈbe̞ˑ], inalienably possessed noun: “shade, shadow“

Originally posted by vhspunk

Surprisingly difficult to find a good GIF for this concept. Weird…

Anyway, this word isn’t all that difficult. It simply refers to the darkness cast by an object that blocks a source of light. It can refer to both the darkness itself (the shade) and the shape of that darkness (the shadow). Interestingly, as in the English word “shade”, it can sometimes refer to what is creating a shadow, rather than the shadow itself, especially in compounds.

Repé is inalienably possessed, i.e. a possessor must always be marked on that noun. The actual root of the word is rép, which indicates a known 3rd person possessor (”his/her/its/their shadow”). The citation form repé actually marks possession by an indefinite possessor (”someone’s (irrelevant or unknown) shadow”). Other forms include repún: “my shadow“, repí “your (singular) shadow“, etc. It makes sense: a shadow is always the shadow of something.

No example today, but I should have one for tomorrow’s word.

9th Lexember Word

oseków [o̞ʑe̞̽ˈgo̞͡ʊ], intransitive verb: “to strike (for lightning); to fall, to shoot (for a shooting star)“

Originally posted by gracefuldreamer

Big GIF, but it’s worth it!

So the last two words were, as I wrote three days ago, a preparation to explain how to talk about lightning strikes themselves. As I wrote back then, the word remuríp refers to the flash of light caused by a lightning strike, rather than the lightning strike itself. To talk about the lightning strike itself, one must use this oddly specific verb, which is basically used only to describe the motion of lightning strikes and shooting stars.

Of course, this verb is a transparent incorporation of ós: “sky” with the verb eków: “to cross“, resulting in a verb meaning literally “to cross the sky”, which is indeed what lightning strikes and shooting stars tend to do, in their own ways (oseków is not used to describe the motion of the sun, moon or stars, however. Nor is it used to describe the motion of clouds, birds or anything else found in the sky. Lightning strikes and shooting stars may have been singled out due to their short and unpredictable natures).

Now, we have the verb “to strike”. But how does one refer to a lightning strike, then? Well, it’s actually very simple: they mention the same god whose voice provides for thunder, as in the following example:

Ortáse ciékun watoseków ankese ka!: “The lightning has hit my house!“ (literally “The god/spirit has crossed the sky down to my house! (and I actually saw it)”)

8th Lexember Word

eków [e̞ˈgo̞͡ʊ], transitive verb: “to cross, to pass, to go through“

Originally posted by mustafinesse

I don’t know what she went through, but she definitely did!

Haotyétpi is mostly a verb-framed language. While it does have verbs encoding the manner of motion, most of its verbs encode the path of motion, and they are the verbs that are normally used as the main verb of a sentence describing motion. Also, it’s very usual in Haotyétpi to simply describe motion with pahú: “to go“ or á: “to come“, without even mentioning how the motion went.

In other words, for a Haotyétpi speaker, the motion itself and its path are its most important characteristic. The manner by which the motion was accomplished is secondary at best.

No example for this one either. I’m just not having any inspiration.

7th Lexember Word

ós [ˈo̞ˑɕ], alienably possessed noun: “sky“

Originally posted by loopedgifs

OK, that is just gorgeous.

So, today’s word refers to the sky, i.e. that location above our heads where most weather phenomena happen. It’s where clouds form and disappear, it’s where rain comes from, it’s where you have to look at to see the sun, moon and stars, etc.

Unlike my conlang Moten, Haotyétpi does not distinguish between the day sky and the night sky. Both are simply ós.

No example today. I need to give a few more words before I can make more meaningful examples.

6th Lexember Word

remuríp [ɾe̞mʊˈɾiˑp], alienably possessed noun: “lightning, flash of lightning“

Originally posted by lexienalley

Well, it’s either lightning or an alien attack…

Since we had thunder yesterday, it was logical to follow with thunder’s older brother, lightning. Notice, however, that the word remuríp does not refer to the lightning strike itself, but rather to the bright flash of light caused by a lightning strike. To refer to lightning actually striking, we’ll need a few more words, which will come in the next few days.

This time, to make up for the lack of examples in the last 3 Lexember entries, here’s a more complicated example sentence:

Iwté remuríp ricán no tu, ortáse ponop kanná irát sinwa so as: “I can see lightning in the distance, but can’t hear thunder yet.“ (literally: “I see lightning that is far away, and even then the god still isn’t here.”)

5th Lexember Word

ortáse hón [o̞ɾˈtäˑʑə̆ ˈvo̞ˑn], noun phrase: “thunder“

Originally posted by hellish-b0y

I know this is lightning rather than thunder, but try finding a GIF for a strictly auditory phenomenon!

In keeping with the weather theme we have had going on since the beginning, today’s word also refers to a weather phenomenon. However, the word itself is rather different from the previous ones, in that it’s not actually a word but an idiom, composed of already known Haotyétpi words whose combination means more than the sum of its parts. Literally, this phrase means “voice of spirits”, although a more accurate translation might be “god’s voice”. It is composed of the inalienably possessed noun honé: “(one’s) voice“, possessed by the inalienably possessed noun ortáse: “(one’s) soul, spirit, god”.

This does not mean, however, that the speakers of Haotyétpi still literally believe that thunder is gods shouting at them or at each other (although it is part of their animistic beliefs). It’s just how they usually refer to it in normal conversation.

Once again, no example this time around, but I’ll try to make it up to you tomorrow.

4th Lexember Word

wakkumárpi [ʋäkːʊˈmäˑɾpɪ̆], nominalisation: “rainstorm“

Originally posted by poppy-finch

This word refers to a storm that is characterised by heavy rainfall. Thunder, lightning and strong winds may also be involved here, but rain is what the speaker is focussing on.

Morphologically speaking, this word is a transparent nominalisation of the sentence wakkú már: “it’s raining a lot“ (literally “the rain is violent“), and still behaves somewhat verbally in some circumstances.

No example for this one either.

3rd Lexember Word

markó [mäɾˈko̞ˑ], alienably possessed noun: “storm, windstorm“

Originally posted by cheetahswolf

This is the most basic word for storm. It usually refers to storms without precipitation but with strong gusts of wind, although other types of storms can be referred to that way if one does not want to be precise.

In terms of morphology, this word is actually the nominalisation of yesterday’s már: “to be violent“, with the nominalising suffix -ko. It’s identical in structure to the noun askó: “truth, reality”, a nominalisation of ás: “to exist“.

No example this time. This is not a complicated word, it just means “storm”.

Issues with Lexember posts

So, as you may have noticed with the last two posts, things have been a bit messed up here on this blog. As I mentioned in this post, I make my Lexember posts on Tumblr (my main blog these days, sorry about that), and they should automatically be copied over here for my readers and the readers of the Conlang Aggregator. I have a special IFTTT applet set up specifically for that.

Unfortunately, it seems IFTTT is throwing a fit with my Lexember posts, and cannot copy their contents over to Blogger. The result being the empty post you may have seen appear yesterday (before I filled it by hand when I discovered the issue). I tried to solve the issue with IFTTT, but quite simply failed (I can't seem to find what is wrong with IFTTT. It should work, but it clearly doesn't), so today's Lexember post ended up as an empty post here again. This time I immediately set out to fill it by hand, but I did so using the mobile Blogger app, and it messed things up too (I need to check how to make it accept HTML input). I've now cleaned up the post contents so it shows up correctly, though.

Basically, this has been a train wreck, and to prevent further damage, I have disabled the misbehaving IFTTT applet. I'll simply copy my Lexember posts over by hand (and will do so on my computer only, at least until I can figure out how to make the Blogger app work correctly). I am not abandoning this blog, don't worry about it. However, being unable to count on automation means the Lexember updates may not always appear on time here. If you really want to read my Lexember updates as soon as they are available, I advice you check out my Twitter stream instead, or to follow my Tumblr blog directly (but I hope you don't mind pictures of cute animals, especially dogs!).

Sorry for the inconvenience.

2nd Lexember Word

már [ˈmäˑɾ], intransitive verb: “to be violent, to be intense; to be strong“

Originally posted by seagloss

Yes, that kind of violence.

As a reminder, Haotyétpi does not have adjectives as a separate part of speech. It has stative, intransitive verbs with such meanings instead.

Here, már marks extreme force, not necessarily physical conflict (although it can refer to extreme force being used in a physical conflict). One of its most common uses is with weather phenomena, where it is used instead of nák to indicate that they happen at a stronger level than usual. In particular, it is very commonly used with yesterday’s word sohé: “wind“, as people usually only remark on the wind when it’s blowing harder than usual.

As with nák, nouns that refer to weather phenomena usually incorporate with már to form closed (no-valent) verbs.

Yenná ponop sohemár pise re: “It’s really blowing a gale right now, isn’t it?”

1st Lexember Word

sohé [so̞ˈʝe̞ˑ], alienably possessed noun: “wind, breeze“

Originally posted by teapotsandroses

To start with, here’s a word that is not too complicated to understand. Sohé simply refers to the weather phenomenon that is wind in general.

As with other weather phenomena, It is common to use the verb nák: “to stand up“ to refer to the wind blowing, although see tomorrow for a more common verb used with sohé.

Kaam ké, sohenák marese: “It’s windy today.“

Lexember 2016

Hi everyone! December is around the corner, and you know what that means. No, not the holiday seasons, but something much more important: it’s Lexember time again!

As usual, I will once again participate in Lexember, creating (hopefully) 1 word a day from the 1st of December till New Year’s Eve. Like last year, I will create words for my newest conlang Haotyétpi (warning: PDF). It’s the one that mostly in need of more vocabulary, especially given a certain (secret) project of mine.

Anyway, I hope you’ll enjoy my Lexember entries. As usual, I will post here on Tumblr and on Twitter (@tsela), and I’ll try to remember to post my entries on Facebook and Google+ too.

As usual, likes, reblogs and comments are more than welcome!

from Tumblr http://ift.tt/2g3NqfO
via IFTTT

Fifth Lexember Month: for Something Completely Different, a Month of Haotyétpi Words

First, let me apologise for leaving this blog to languish for so long. It's not that I haven't been active (anyone who follows my Tumblr blog knows that's not the case). Rather, I haven't been very active with the things I usually share on this blog, in particular with the development of Moten. Basically, what has happened in 2015 is that I burned myself out on Moten. Don't take me wrong: I love my conlang, and I'm glad I've been able to work long enough on a single language that it is now at a near usable point. However, I have also been full of new ideas of linguistic features I'd like to implement in a conlang, and I couldn't implement them in Moten without breaking the language. Still, I was bursting at the seams with ideas. This combination of working on a language that was basically done, apart from the vocabulary, together with this ever present need to create something new, caused me to start resenting working on Moten!

That was, of course, an unacceptable situation! Conlanging is my main hobby, and one of the only activities I find true satisfaction in doing. There was no way I could let it become poisoned for me. So, after a period of self-reflection, and identifying exactly what it was that was bothering me and preventing me from enjoying my work on Moten, I made two decisions:

1. To pause my work on Moten for a while. Clearly, working on a single conlang for an extended period of time doesn't sit well with me. I needed to take a break and refill my Moten batteries, so to speak;
2. To start a new conlang to canalise all those creative juices that were flooding my brains (if you'll allow me to stretch this metaphor to the breaking point). Like I said, I had plenty of new linguistic ideas I was dying to try out, and no way to play with them, creating a situation where my brains basically got blocked. the only way I could unblock it was by letting my creative juices flow in a new language.

And that's basically what I did. I paused my work on Moten and started working on a new language. With so much creative energy just begging to be used, it wasn't long before I had a working language description, which I eventually presented to the CONLANG mailing list back in November 2015. The conlang itself is called Haotyétpi, which is actually a nominalised verb phrase meaning "that which we speak to each other" (it's an endonym. Unlike Moten which is spoken in the here and now and has no associated culture to speak of, Haotyétpi is a more traditional "fictional" language, with a conculture associated to it. Since I don't know whether the world where Haotyétpi is spoken actually contains any English speakers, I don't have an English exonym for it).

As for the language description itself, it is available here (warning: PDF hosted on Google Drive. Good news is that Google Drive's PDF preview feature works well). Since I was working on a new language, I decided to try my hand at new tools for the purpose of documenting it. This language description has been created using XeLaTeX and the Brill typeface via ShareLaTeX (basically an online TeXLive installation, very complete and up-to-date, and with a great in-browser LaTeX editor). Working on this new language has allowed me to test these tools, and I am very happy with the results so far!

So when Lexember came around again last year, I was neither ready to resume working on Moten, nor willing to miss such a fun event. So naturally, I decided to participate with Haotyétpi. Giving such a young language a nice vocabulary injection was too good to pass.

As with last year, I wrote all my Lexember posts on Tumblr, automatically shared them on Twitter and Facebook, and manually shared them on Google+ and the CONLANG mailing list. I hadn't set up an automatic link between Tumblr and this blog for Haotyétpi posts, so they unfortunately didn't appear here or on the Conlang Aggregator, but this post is my way of correcting this oversight. I have now set up that automatic link, so this problem shouldn't happen again.

As I did last year, I will give here the short definitions of the created words and link to the relevant (Tumblr) posts. Don't hesitate to follow these links: each Lexember Tumblr post contains extensive descriptions of Haotyétpi in general and the created words in particular, together with topical GIFs and in some cases even example sentences! Also, Haotyétpi is very different from Moten, with a very distinct phonology, grammar and even semantics, so you really need to read those posts (together with the grammar document I linked to) in order to make sense of these entries. So, without further ado, here are all my new words for a new language:

1st word: wakkú [ʋäˈkːuˑ], alienably possessed noun:

rain.

2nd word: repáta [ɾe̞ˈpäˑtə̆], intransitive verb:

to be/become slow, late.

3rd word: oméw [o̞ˈme̞͡ʊ], intransitive verb:

to be/become early, fast.

4th word: yosék [jo̞ˈʑe̞ˑk], nominalisation:

food, something to eat.

5th word: pusék [puˈʑe̞ˑk], nominalisation:

drink, something to drink.

6th word: eyró [e̞͡ɪ̆ˈɾo̞ˑ], intransitive verb:

to be/become pleasant, liked.

7th word: hekáw [çe̞ˈgä͡ʊ], intransitive verb:

to be/become unpleasant, hated.

8th word: ankése [änˈd͡ʑe̞ˑʑə̆], inalienably possessed noun:

face, look, appearance.

9th word: honé [fo̞ˈɲe̞ˑ], inalienably possessed noun:

voice.

10th word: =nekkon [ɲe̞̽kːo̞̽ŋ], nominalising clitic:

seems like, but is not.

11th word: né [ˈɲe̞ˑ], transitive verb:

to wear (clothes).

12th word: més [ˈme̞ˑɕ], transitive verb:

to be/become attached to.

13th word: nesék [ɲe̞ˈʑe̞ˑk], nominalisation:

clothes, thing to wear.

14th word: tawít [täˈʋiˑt], alienably possessed noun:

cat.

15th word: cupí [t͡suˈbiˑ], intransitive verb:

to sleep.

16th word: iá [iˈäˑ], transitive verb:

to breathe; to smoke.

17th word: inwé [iˈnʋe̞ˑ], transitive verb:

to hold, to carry.

18th word: paró [päˈɾo̞ˑ], transitive verb:

to carry (sthg) on one’s back.

19th word: samar= [sɐmɐɾ], adnoun:

other, another, else.

20th word: meún [me̞ˈuˑŋ], intransitive verb:

to be/become different.

21st word: ricá [ɾiˈd͡zäˑ], transitive verb:

to see, to look at, to watch.

22nd word: cupiapásko [t͡subɪ.ɐˈbäˑɕkə̆], alienably possessed noun:

dream (images seen while asleep).

23rd word: kommés [ko̞ˈmːe̞ˑɕ], intransitive verb:

to see, to look, to observe.

24th word: rí [ˈɾiˑ], transitive verb:

to hear, to listen to.

25th word: sepáne [ɕe̞ˈbäˑɲə̆], inalienably possessed noun:

ear.

26th word: ké [ˈt͡ɕe̞ˑ], alienably possessed positional:

day (24-hour period).

27th word: -(a)p [(ɐ)p], verbal suffix:

to have the quality of.

28th word: -ye [je̞̽], verbal suffix:

to have the quality of.

29th word: ortáse [o̞ɾˈtäˑʑə̆], inalienably possessed noun:

soul, spirit, god.

30th word: ortáp [o̞ɾˈtäˑp], intransitive verb:

to be holy, to be sacred.

31st word: turá [tuˈɾäˑ], alienably possessed noun:

skill, ability; endurance, stamina.

Since Haotyétpi is a very new conlang, I am not going to do any statistics this time. That would be pointless. However, I just want to mention a few things:

• By convention, I type every Haotyétpi word in italics (like I type Moten in bold);
• The romanisation I chose for Haotyétpi is strictly phonemic, up to and including an acute accent to mark stress on the syllable of every word that carries one (including monosyllables). However, Haotyétpi also features plenty of allophony, so I included phonetic transcriptions of the words above in order to make it clearer how they are meant to sound like;
• I cite clitics (independent words that lack their own stress) with a = sign, and affixes with a - sign. In both cases, the position of the sign indicates whether the clitic or affix attaches on the previous or the following word (for clitics, only in terms of prosody). Such signs are only used when citing these forms. In normal Haotyétpi texts, affixes are simply attached to the words they complete, while clitics are written as separate words (their status as clitics is still obvious, dus to the lack of accent mark).

This year's Lexember has cemented my opinion that Tumblr is just the perfect platform for it. It possesses all the social features needed for what is really a group event, the casual atmosphere needed to make it fun, without the restrictions of Twitter's limited post length. However, greatness is not limited to just one platform, and whether on Tumblr, Twitter, Google+, Facebook or the Conlang Mailing List, I enjoyed reading everyone's Lexember entries. This event just keeps getting better with time. I'm looking forward to the next iteration!